


stepping in a little too deep

by gekijougai



Category: Love Live! School Idol Project, Love Live! Sunshine!!
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Emotional Exploitation, F/F, Horror, Manipulation, Murder, Suicide Attempt, Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms, Unhealthy Relationships, implied rubymaru, killer yoshiko
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-13
Updated: 2020-05-13
Packaged: 2021-03-03 00:41:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,260
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24106132
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gekijougai/pseuds/gekijougai
Summary: 7 years ago, yoshiko killed a girl on the rooftop of uranohoshi
Relationships: Kurosawa Ruby/Tsushima Yoshiko
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9





	stepping in a little too deep

**Author's Note:**

> advanced apologies.
> 
> this has been sitting in my drafts for over 2 years, and the idea came around while i was rewatching hannibal. so yes it’s... hannibal inspired.
> 
> this is not a pretty fic. nothing here is healthy.
> 
> heed the warnings. look away while you have the chance.

Numazu, Yoshiko thinks, has become simpler over the years.

She stares ahead blankly, walking towards the bus stop. Truthfully, the places did not entirely change. The emptiness of the bus stop gave a certain calmness to the eerie silence, and memories crawl back up.

_How could you have returned when no one has forgiven you?_

Yoshiko returns because who could stop her?

_You don’t miss this place._

Truthfully, she doesn’t. After a solemn graduation, she left the smallness of Uchiura and wandered alone until she reached more people and bigger cities. She was nameless. Walked alone, studied alone, and worked alone. 

She did not hear of Uchiura again, not until she saw an outdated newspaper in a library, slightly crumpled except for the one a few pages after the headline.

_Uchiura—_

_all girls’ school—_

_after graduation— no leads— families grieve—_

It should not have been enough for her to return to Uchiura— _no one would try and go to that place again after that—_ but she closes the newspaper and exits the library.

The words imprinted themselves on the back of her mind, intrusive and unwanted, like a ticking of the clock. It follows her, the sound, grains on a negative space that interrupted the tranquility permanently even though it wasn’t going to go after her. The grains stayed still, not rattling, not moving. It was just there, an uneasiness she knew would never leave her as much as she tried.

(The grains would break and tremble like an earthquake. Roots breaking out of their shells and soon the small mustard seed would turn itself into a flourishing bush, and inside that bush Yoshiko hid many, many of the secrets.)

It wasn’t going to be cut down. Not yet.

The bus arrives by the time the sun dips in the ocean, the striking familiarity still running over her skin. The nostalgia is bubbling in her stomach, yet it isn’t as bittersweet as she always heard. The history of it all wasn’t pretty, and Yoshiko knows nostalgia shouldn’t be described as the feeling of rush with a childish sense of _power._

_-_

She walks, no matter how tiring, everywhere around Uchiura, getting lost and eating in convenience stores. Occasionally, she would come across closed down buildings, until she ended up in front of a temple. 

_How does it feel?_

Maybe the earth itself was purgatory, though Yoshiko was sure that in the afterlife, she would be sent straight to hell. Maybe fallen angels were real, maybe she was one. She knew better not to believe them, but then again, who is she to say they weren’t real if they had a name? 

Just like the girl had a name, and her blood boiled just thinking about the _existence_ of it.

_I thought we were friends, Yoshiko-chan._

She walks faster, but she knew her voice would always catch up and there is absolutely nothing she could do about it. Not when she runs, or when she thinks of jumping into the waiting ocean. The easiest way out is to die, which seems like the only option.

“Maybe I was delusional.” A right, straight ahead, another right, she doesn’t know where she’s going anymore. She might sleep on a bench, she doesn’t care.

That girl is still the one who stayed out of all the people that she—

A bus stop. She lies down on the hard metal and closes her eyes. For a second, she felt as if the voice was staring at her. 

She falls asleep and the feeling disappears.

-

She was guiltless. No one knew. No one could find her.

Humanity slipped from her fingertips, and Yoshiko would never find redemption.

-

There isn’t a sliver of sunlight in the sky yet, but Yoshiko finds herself walking to a road all too familiar and a little too empty.

The abandoned building still looks clean, but after pushing the gates with difficulty, the dust tickles her nose and her vision adjusts.

Uranohoshi is completely empty, save for the dirt and a couple of bugs everywhere. The windows were too smudged for light to try and pass through, and Yoshiko wanders, confused as to why the place hadn't been demolished. There is no peace left in the place, especially after the place was already _stained_.

There were scratches and peeling walls, alongside pieces of yellow tape that never got to escape the building with its lack of wind and movement. The auditorium was wider than she remembered and it was like white noise.

(They describe guilt as this constant anxiety over your conscience, and she knew that her conscience was already ruined a long, long time ago, in the same space she’s standing in right now.)

-

She steps outside the auditorium, and like a silent splash, the place echoed in her head. 

_shock on sight. screams, sounds of retching, thuds on the floor, some passed out. She couldn’t pinpoint the parts where girls vomited on the floor, and the crowd swimmed in her vision, until she was staring at the body that has turned gray with the blood turned black—_

Yoshiko sighs, turning back to the auditorium with the feeling of something burning on her fingertips.

She’s back in the hallways. All of the classroom doors were either closed or slightly ajar, and in each step the dust flew around before settling back on the floor again or in Yoshiko’s nose. Not entirely pleasant, but none of this whole trip is ever pleasant to her in the first place.

-

She meets a girl on the rooftop.

The sun blends in the clouds and the dissipating sky, rays hitting the girl’s hair on the edge of the building and reflecting bright oranges from the magenta.

“I never would’ve thought people would come back to this school after seven years.”

She spins around with panic in her eyes, feet tumbling and a shriek edging on the tip of her tongue until Yoshiko grabs her arm, making her body bump against her with shaky breaths hitting her shoulder as her feet scramble away.

“Don’t kill yourself now.”

“How—“ she hics, mouth unable to form coherence. “No, no, you wouldn’t— you don’t—“

“No one stands on the edge of the building to watch the sunrise.” She looks down at the girl, still unable to look at anything but the floor of the rooftop. Yoshiko’s hand firmly grips her arm, her skin cold and breaths choppy and she sees tears flowing endlessly down her cheeks.

She doesn’t do anything with her panic, only standing and listening to her raspy breathing as she tries to get away from Yoshiko’s grip while trying not to tumble from the roof altogether.

This wasn’t Yoshiko’s business. The girl could’ve killed herself, but a part of her was compelled to intervene, just to see what could happen. She would be lying if she said she didn’t want to watch someone die.

(blood is strongly infiltrating her lungs and making her hands wet—)

But the girl fails to compose herself, still holding on to Yoshiko with the inability to move that Yoshiko had no choice but to step back, the girl’s footsteps clumsily following hers. 

“Let’s leave.” Yoshiko suggests, voice quiet. The girl nods meekly as her footsteps stutter. “Let’s go somewhere.”

As the door of the rooftop closes behind them, the ghost of a corpse hangs lowly from the sky.

-

Yoshiko knows she’s making a stupid decision. A simple, stupid mistake she could avoid if she could just let her jump off the roof. It’s easy _,_ the railings weren’t there anymore, and one push would have ended it. 

(Much easier.)

Uchiura is instead, quiet, and she’s holding the girl by the wrist, who’s too stunned to break the ice.

-

The cafe shows signs of decay. Woods chipped and the tables weren’t cleaned of scratches and vandalism, yet this is the only place Yoshiko knew of that isn’t a convenience store. It’s not like the girl minds, hands clasped against the too hot mug that Yoshiko knows is burning her palms, too focused on one spot to speak nor pay attention to her drink.

Yoshiko wonders the _what-ifs_ in her head, if she wasn’t there to stop her, or if she instead watched her fall into her demise. 

(If she truly wanted to die, Yoshiko could give it to her.)

“Why?”

It’s like the steam in the air. Floating in space and staying, swirling. The girl looks up, eyes evidently tired and red, and the rest of her face pales at the question.

“Pardon?” She asks, obviously trying to avoid explaining herself. Yoshiko is not her friend. There is no need to be gentle.

“Why were you there?” _Voice gentle anyway_ , euphemistic and low even with the emptiness of the cafe.

The girl looks down and gives her first sip of coffee, a small grimace forming on her face. Timid and polite, another one that Yoshiko has seen before. If there is one thing she observed, it’s that the shyest of people gave the most painful shrieks.

“I… really don’t want to answer that.”

The cafe falls back into silence and Yoshiko waits for her to finish her coffee, looking outside the window. She doesn’t speak, and she thinks of her on the top of the building. Memories of the school came crashing into her like a wave, and she wanted nothing but to leave immediately if it wasn’t for the fact that some girl is on the verge of suicide.

“What do you do?”

Yoshiko stands as the girl almost chokes on her last gulp, the cup landing loudly against the table with the both of them leaving the place in a confused rush.

“Show me,” Yoshiko demands, dragging her through the streets. The girl doesn’t retaliate, and she keeps up until Yoshiko lets her go. “What do you do?” The question repeats itself, with Yoshiko’s eyes glancing at hers as if in a fit of desperation. “Do you study? Do you work?”

“Wait, w-wait, wait!” 

They halt in the middle of the street. She’s calm, with her pleading fading from her face.

“I don’t even know your name.”

Yoshiko stops.

“Tsushima Yoshiko.” She blinks and Yoshiko looks away.

Yoshiko does not turn back fully to look at her, but she thinks she saw the smallest of smiles creep up to the girl’s face. “Tsushima-san. I’m Kurosawa Ruby.”

-

Yoshiko learns that Kurosawa owns a small clothes shop nearby, run with someone by the name of Watanabe You. She spent the last few months in the shop to earn money. The only words she heard were “ship” and “overseas”, and the conversation died out like there was nothing of merit.

“I haven’t seen you around here before, but somehow I feel like I‘ve seen you somewhere.” Watanabe says, putting on her glasses and fluffing up the dresses. Her eyes did not leave Yoshiko.

“It’s been years since I last came to Uchiura. I left the moment I graduated.”

The talk of the school was enough to cloud the atmosphere. No one spoke after that, but they all knew what it meant.

-

Yoshiko decides to stay.

She doesn’t tell Kurosawa that she has to leave at some point. The ghosts of the dead are too strong. They’re too bothersome. If she feels that she has to stay any longer than she intended to, she’s going to lose her mind.

(Kurosawa has to die at some point.)

And yet Yoshiko lets herself sit by the bus stop, the paranoia itching at her skin. Kurosawa insists that she stays with her, and the paranoia stops below her neck.

“I… wanted to thank you. A-at my place. If it’s okay.”

Yoshiko could have rejected her, and say that she has somewhere else to go. That she only wanted to visit Uchiura, and would leave and never come back. Instead, she lies.

“It’s okay.”

It’s hard to miss the solemn look on her face, and the optimism in her eyes.

-

“Why are you here?”

Kurosawa’s apartment is simple. There were attempts at decoration, and clear marks of peeled walls like they were out to get her. Yoshiko is surprised to know Watanabe doesn’t live with her, but doesn’t question it further. Kurosawa took that opportunity to ask her something instead.

So Yoshiko decides to tell the truth. 

“A friend died around here.”

Kurosawa freezes up, and turns to her with wide eyes. She’s trembling. Yoshiko _knew._

“I… see.”

_She lost someone too, you know?_

She pushes it down. She doesn’t know if it’s a thought or a voice.

“Tsushima-san?!”

(And if we forget, just for a bit?) Yoshiko grabs her wrists and locks the grip by their chests until they are looking at each other, Kurosawa shocked and searching Yoshiko’s face for _something._ And Yoshiko offers.

“And if we forget?” Her thoughts repeat itself, slipping past her teeth.

The girl relaxes, and Yoshiko leans. 

It’s fast, and Kurosawa— _Ruby,_ melts in her kiss. Yoshiko smiles against her lips; wasn’t she just a foolish, broken girl, giving in for what feels like a century of touch deprived from her? Yoshiko lets her hands go to test that theory.

She laughs, because she’s correct, and Ruby pulls her back in, pleading to have her touch again.

She cradles her cheek on the palm of her hand, _what a fragile little thing_ , and Ruby seems to love every second of it.

-

Yoshiko remembers killing her on that rooftop.

(“You…” She trembles, stepping back until the railing touches her. “Yoshiko-chan?”)

Her skin is on fire, aching and trembling and _giddy._ Ruby shudders under her arms and all Yoshiko could remember is the feeling of rush she had first felt all those years ago. 

(“I’ve searched you for years. I didn’t even know you studied here.)

Ruby’s hands trail on her under the blanket, electric and soft, with her breath buzzing against her skin. The need for _someone else_ emanates from her words, and Yoshiko squeezes her between her hands.

“P-please…”

(“You’re going to...” Her voice drops until her words disappear into the wind.)

“You have me, don’t you?” Yoshiko kisses the underside of her jaw, her whole body shouldering Ruby’s. She breaks into a sob, locking Yoshiko in a tight embrace like she’s afraid to let her go. She wonders what kind of betrayal she must’ve experienced in her life, for her to be completely uninhibited under Yoshiko and savoring every drop of Yoshiko’s affections.

It’s dangerous for her, latching on to anything that she can tightly hold for support. May it be a frayed rope or spool of thread, Ruby would hold until it would break, and come back grasping for _anything_ so she could come back up. That rope now is Yoshiko

(She frowns, brushing away the brown hair that stuck on her sweaty forehead, as if succumbing to her fate.)

There is fire on her fingers, and she’s brushing them against Ruby and she pleads and Yoshiko kisses her until she can't breathe.

_You’re not saving her._

Ruby’s sobs say otherwise.

-

The next day, Yoshiko leaves, and settles down on the cafe until the sun dips.

She gets 2 missed calls and 3 texts.

**Where are you?**

**I’ll always be by the shop.**

**I’ll wait for you. Please come back.**

-

On the third day after she leaves, she carelessly wanders around Uchiura until she gets sick of seeing the same corner and alley, turning the opposite way whenever she arrives at a temple. Every time she steps near the school, her shoes scrape against the dirt until it flies around her, and settles back into memorizing every street once again.

On the fifth day, she returns and rereads the messages Ruby sent to her.

When Watanabe exits the shop, she stops by her feet the moment she spots Yoshiko. Her brows are furrowed and her face is pulled into a frown, and greets her with a hidden animosity. “You could have at least left her a message, you know.”

Yoshiko mirrors her face, and her fingers twitch. “That’s none of your business.”

The other leaves without saying anything, and Yoshiko sighs. But she supposes it’s really her fault. It’s not everyday someone would let her in so willingly, that the barriers are so weak and pathetic there was no need to tear them down if you could just walk over them.

She jumps when Ruby wraps her in a hug, shoulders and chest heaving and on the verge of tears. Yoshiko returns it with a meaningful embrace, leaning against her hair.

The girl seems to misunderstand the concept of a one night stand that Yoshiko has to stop herself from laughing at her lack of self security, and pushes away the nervous feeling that tingles on the tip of her fingers. She’s too simple, too trusting, and too _vulnerable._ A knife could stab through her and the blade would slide off seamlessly.

“You’re not leaving?” 

Yoshiko shakes her head, and could almost hear something scowl. 

Ruby pulls her down, and Yoshiko lets her.

-

“Yoshiko, please…” Ruby gasps in between breaths, longing and desperate for understanding that she grabs Yoshiko by the scalp to look at her directly in the face, red and small. Yoshiko ignores her as she tucks a lock of hair behind Ruby’s ear. On her second week in Uchiura, Yoshiko is in Ruby’s apartment more than any other place in the town.

“Let’s talk, Yoshiko.” Yoshiko drowns her out with one last kiss, and Ruby stills.

“Let me treat you.” Yoshiko happily offers instead, embracing her and stroking her hair, and Ruby is submissive in her arms. Because Ruby is desperate for touch, so desperate for love she would do _anything_ for the care and affection that no one would give her and who is Yoshiko to deny her that love? Ruby doesn’t say anything else, letting the words die off that almost sounded like _I need you, please don’t go._

After all, Ruby is so _easy._

Her tears never seem to run out, because she starts crying again the longer Yoshiko holds her. The scratches on Yoshiko’s back reminds her of how Ruby doesn’t want her to stop.

“I can’t promise you anything.” Yoshiko says honestly, because watching Ruby cry and melt and freeze all in the span of one moment felt too much like taking candy from a baby. She seems so ready to lash out, ready to beg once again and the tears on Ruby’s face taste sweet. Her tears taste like catharsis.

“Stay with me longer.” Ruby sinks to the floor, her fingers grasping only Yoshiko’s hand. “Let me give you what you want.” 

She accepts the invitation. Yoshiko pins her down with her leg between her thighs, and Ruby smiles, giving herself up for her. 

-

“Ruby has been through a lot.” Watanabe bluntly says one day, three weeks after Yoshiko’s stay in Uchiura. Ruby left to tend errands, and Yoshiko is standing in the middle of the clothes shop with a cooling drink in her hands. 

She shrugs. It’s not like it’s Watanabe’s job to tell her about Ruby. Yoshiko is often staying over Ruby’s place, more because of Ruby’s insistence and less because of Yoshiko having nowhere else to go. She never planned to stay longer, but opportunities open up and sometimes you just have to take them.

_But it’s more exciting to pull her apart like that, no?_

“I can tell she has.” Yoshiko downs her coffee, almost crushing the cup in the process. Watanabe frowns and Yoshiko _itches_ to throw the damned drink to her face. 

“I’m not trying to stop her from doing what she wants, I’m just saying this because she’s my friend and I care about her.” 

Yoshiko wants to laugh but she holds her ground. She almost wants to ask her if she knew Ruby went to the rubbles of Uranohoshi to kill herself, if she had ever held her or if she had ever kissed her until Ruby stops crying. Instead, she pinches the bridge of her nose and tries to remedy the headache flooding the sides of her temples.

“What do you really want to say?”

“I don’t think you’re good for her.” She admits. “I’ve tried to be there for her, and _so help me god_ , Tsushima-san. Help her too.”

Yoshiko smirks, and lets it grow into a smile that reaches her eyes. “Of course, Watanabe-san.” 

Her frown only seems to deepen.

-

Yoshiko could break her heart right there. She knows she is all Ruby has. She could leave right then and there, because she knows the bliss of leaving her while she was still playing with her is more delicious than leaving her in the clarity of being unwanted.

Ruby starts heaving until she couldn’t find it in her to speak, and calms as Yoshiko’s kisses ghost the insides of her wrists, pulse beating fast until—nothing.

Yoshiko stays.

(She allows herself to make a mistake.)

-

“I lost her.” Ruby says one night, sitting on Yoshiko’s lap. She stares anywhere except Yoshiko’s face and she keeps her eyes wide, like blinking them even once would let her break further into the darkness.

“Then?” Yoshiko runs her hands on her thighs, and poor, miserable Ruby sinks further into Yoshiko. 

“My best friend is dead and my sister is dead and I don’t know what to do.”

When Ruby looks at her, Yoshiko knows it’s not her that Ruby sees. “She was the first one I lost in my life and then I kept losing everything else.”

Yoshiko shuts her up and claims her with her mouth. Ruby reciprocates and it’s salty and wet and Ruby has to pull away multiple times to breathe. Then she kisses Yoshiko again. She moves and cries into her mouth and Yoshiko relishes in Ruby’s unhappiness, indulging Ruby's needs and wants and ripping her apart.

Ruby kisses Yoshiko like she’s her salvation. Yoshiko kisses Ruby like she’s eating her alive.

-

(“You’re out of your mind!” she screams, trying to hold her guts in before she falls with a sickening crack.)

-

“Who was she?” 

Yoshiko asks her in the dark, her lips grazing the cold skin on Ruby’s neck. She feels her swallow brokenly. She runs her fingers down her chest and stops just above her stomach. She could gut her here. Her finger moves slightly to the right. She could stab her heart.

Ruby’s voice drops into a whisper. 

“Hanamaru.”

-

_“She’s gentle. I’ve always been there for her from the start, and I’ve always thought she might outgrow it someday.”_

_Yoshiko wants to grab the girl by her hair, but she could only stand still to watch, golden brown hair drifting through the wind and yellow sweater almost obnoxiously bright in the fogginess of her vision._

_“But she couldn’t, because you took that away from her.”_

She wakes up with the weight of Ruby’s body on her, her arms tightly wrapped around Yoshiko’s waist, like she’s afraid to let go even in her slumber. She runs her fingers on her hair, and Ruby pressing closer makes her stomach drop.

-

  
  


“I killed her.”

Rain pours violently against the roof, but their silence is deafening. Neither of them moved.

Yoshiko was supposed to leave. She should have killed her then. In her sleep. Put poison in her tea. Push her on that rooftop as Ruby had always planned.

Ruby doesn’t move even when Yoshiko steps towards her with the knife by her side, making no effort to hide. She’s frozen in place. Shock? Fear? Her face gave nothing away.

Yoshiko thinks, _it’s going to be simple._

The first noise Ruby makes is the sharp gasp through her teeth, with the blade slicing deep into her abdomen. She’s tearing, and she’s staring wildly into Yoshiko, looking, _searching for something._ Yoshiko gives.

Ruby slumps and collapses against her, leaning into the knife and she’s coughing blood and she fists Yoshiko’s shirt for support and she doesn’t _stop looking at her._ Her blood gets on to Yoshiko’s face,

She throws her on the ground and gets Ruby’s phone from her pocket, dialing Watanabe in one last attempt to—attempt to _make fun of her_ and Hanamaru’s laughs are roaring in her ears and Ruby’s hand is still holding her, the one person who ruined her life.

Yoshiko is convinced she’s losing her mind. “Hello, Watanabe-san.”

She twists the knife in her guts and Ruby’s shriek pierces her ears. She ends the call before Watanabe says anything, and drops the phone in Ruby’s pooling blood.

Ruby looks at her the same way she said her name that night. She shakes clumsily with her slippery hands, meekly grabbing her face and kissing her, missing her by a margin and her lips press the side of Yoshiko’s mouth instead.

(Suddenly, Yoshiko is 17, pushing a girl off a railing, and has never felt this horrible in her entire life.)

Ruby’s eyes are cold and sincere. “Would you have loved me if things were different?”

Yoshiko’s stare is hollow and caring. “No, I don’t think I would.” 

Yoshiko is cruel. Ruby is honest. Yoshiko laughs at the sheer absurdity of it all, because she tells her she killed Hanamaru and Ruby fucking asks her _if she would have loved her._

“I’ll…” she manages to breathe out, still holding on to Yoshiko for dear life. “I’ll wait for you.”

She’s disgusted, mortified, and the shout that escapes her chest is hysterical.“You’re delusional.”

_Are you sure?_

Yoshiko escapes her apartment before she could hear the sirens of the police cars, resisting the urge to stab her own ears.

**Author's Note:**

> i am not entirely happy with this fic. i just wanted to get this out of the drafts.
> 
> please tell me if i need to add more tags.


End file.
